Microsoft Announces First Two HTC Phones for Windows Phone 7.5

Microsoft today announced two new HTC handsets that will run Windows Phone 7.5 "Mango," its forthcoming smart phone OS revision. The phones, the HTC TITAN and HTC Radar, will ship in October 2011, exactly when I expected Windows Phone 7.5 to launch.

"I've spent quite a bit of time carrying one of the prototypes of these HTC phones and it’s terrific," Microsoft's Joe Belfiore wrote in a blog post. "HTC introduced the phones in a series of meet up style events in London, Paris, Berlin and Madrid, and they'll be broadly available from October 2011 globally, beginning in Europe and Asia, with pricing info to come later."

HTC TITAN

According to Belfiore, "the HTC TITAN features a big 4.7-inch screen with a slim 9.9mm brushed aluminum shell, and a front facing camera, is a great device for working or for playing. Movies, music and your favorite apps will really come to life on this big screen. Sometimes I hear feedback from some users that 'fonts are a little small' on WP7—absolutely not the case on the TITAN! As designers, we love seeing the wide variation of phone sizes so that our customers can find one that’s the perfect fit for them."

HTC Radar

The HTC Radar features a "unique design, crafted with an aluminum unibody shell. The Radar also includes a front facing camera so you can video chat with your favorite people. I am really excited to see phones like the Radar, because it's a great marriage of beautiful software and great hardware design."

"the different phones that seem to appear every single week, each one-upping the previous "best smartphone ever" with the additional of a single new feature, like a 1/10th of an inch larger screen, 4G hot spot, NFC, whatever."
I guess that line of thinking only applies for non WP7 products, right?

Both single core processors (titan a souped up 1.5ghz) which is ok, but if Microsoft wants to compete with the Androids and iPhones of the world, they need to convince hardware partners to pull out the big guns and that includes high resolution displays, dual core processors. To have two phones release in October in the wake of the inevitable dual core A5 iPhone 5, Microsoft has a long climb uphill.

MS needs to get lower-cost devices out there. I can get an Android phone from T-Mobile for $125 with no contract. The cheapest WP7 phone is $400. Sure, the $125 one is a little slow, and has a smaller screen, but I can get a smartphone without a big investment.